Crime Busters (Bit. Corp Mapper 38) Repro Problem (Solved)

I'm trying to make a repro of this game and according to the pictures from Bootgod, the original cart uses a 74'161 and 74'138.

I traced down all connections I could find and came up with this:


So I tried remaking that game on a CN-ROM board, since it already has a 74'161 on board.

This is what I did:

Desoldered original CHR, PRG ROM as well as 74'161.

Split Crime Busters into CHR (27c256) and PRG (27c040, didn't have a 27c010).

Soldered in the CHR directly (A13 and A14) go to the 74'161 anyway and are present, which is good.

For PRG I bend up pins 1,2,3,22,24,30,31,32
Pin 1 is NC
Pin 2 goes to 74'161 pin 13 (A16)
Pin 3 goes to 74'161 pin 14 (A15)
Pin 22 goes to hole 24 (PRG ROM /CE)
Pin 24 goes to GND (/OE)
Pin 30 and 31 are NC
Pin 32 goes to hole 28 (VCC)

A14 was not connected directly to the connector, I changed that, too.

Tried connecting pin 30 (A17) to VCC as well, no difference.

For the 74'161 I bend up pins 2,5,6,9,11,12,13 and 14. All other pins connect to the board.

The game stays black. Anyone know what could be wrong?

Also, the original board has a 4.7k Ohm resistor if I'm not wrong and a capacitor. What could they be used for? Are they neccessary? Thanks!

I could have sworn I'd previously traced this... oh, yes, I had.

'138 pin 4 is shorted to pin 5. Leaving pin 4 floating could explain what you're seeing.

Okay, so, I forgot there was a solder bridge that connects PRG A14 to VCC as well.
I removed it and now the game boots somewhere in a level and glitches.

Shorting pin 4 and 5 results in a black screen.

However, when connecting A17 to VCC I get a Game Over screen (frozen).

Sometimes I get the title screen and most of the time black screen.

I'm confused with this cart.

Quite possibly. I bet they connect to 74'161 /CLEAR, so that the register starts up in bank 0.

That could explain why the game messed up so much.
I dumped it using GNROM Script with Kazzo. First x4000 bytes were equal, x100 bytes difference and equal again compared to the original. Didn't check the full PRG ROM data though. I'm sure there's more differences. Either way, I desoldered everything for now and will try again tomorrow as it's getting too dark to solder properly.

P.S. The game was working fine in an emulator once dumped until the stage select screen (restarts, most likely caused by the bad dump/wiring).

Will update this topic once I have something new.

Also, looking closer to that resistor and capacitor this is what I come up with:



Now the question. What value is the capacitor?

I barely think I see "0.1uF 50V" on the side

I'm kinda confused by a 0.1uF electrolytic, but.

This is indeed weird. I ordered some 4.7k ohm resistors to try it with one connected.

Also, I think my connection was wrong.

This is how it should be:



If I'm wrong or see this wrong, please correct me.

Both sides being connected to Vcc doesn't make sense.

I'm pretty certain that one side of the capacitor is connected to ground.

Ground - Capacitor - 74'161/CLEAR - Resistor - Vcc

So I'd need to disconnect 74'161 pin 1 from the CN-ROM board, since it's connected to VCC directly?

Then add the circuit to that pin and hope all goes well.

Hope the resistors will be delivered tomorrow.

SUCCESS!

This is the proper pinout to make this game boot and work!



Since I'm using a 27c040 instead of 27c010 I had to connect
A17 to VCC
A18 to GND
in order to make it boot.

Connecting only A17 to VCC randomly crashed the game at the intro.

Thanks for the help lidnariq!